I’m feeling inspired by political dressing at the moment, US First Lady Michelle Obama and First Lady of France Carla Bruni (it doesn’t hurt to be a supermodel to make things look good).

These women seem to have found the balance between looking appropriate but not looking dowdy. They seem to have a mix of aspirational and achievable style.

The title for this post comes from an interview with Michelle Obama in The New York Times discussing her husband’s views on her wardrobe:

He’s always asking: “Is that new? I haven’t seen that before.” It’s like, “Why don’t you mind your own business? Solve world hunger. Get out of my closet.”

She teasingly imitated him: “You didn’t need any more shoes. The shoes you had on yesterday were fine. Why can’t you just wear that for the rest of the presidency?”

Michelle’s style seems to align perfectly with the image her and her husband project. She looks practical and modern, but never boring. Her signature belt, which Barack apparently calls her ‘Star Trek belt’, is I think a perfect representation of the strength and femininity of Michelle Obama – it’s a strong aesthetic, but the cinched belt shows off her waist.

Where Michelle Obama tends to wear a lot of strong colours, which look amazing with her skin tone, Carla Bruni favours more muted tones of grey and navy with the occasional pop of purple.

She very much looks like she’s dressing for the part, and her clothes, mainly by Dior, have a very vintage feel to them, particularly with the pill box hat when she met the Queen, where she takes obvious inspiration from Jackie Kennedy.

I love the symmetry of this picture of Bruni with Princess Letizia of Spain. Although it would be improved by the princess also wearing Louboutins.

The first ladies of fashion caused a bit of a frenzy when earlier this year the Obamas went to France.